1. Technical Field
The present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for detecting and handling software exceptions such as those thrown in Java and C++. More particularly, the present invention is directed to an apparatus and method for detecting and handling software exceptions in a machine having predication and explicit parallelism.
2. Description of Related Art
When a software exception is thrown, normal program flow is altered and an exception handler is invoked. Exceptions are typically thrown when an error or other exceptional condition is encountered. This tends to be a rare occurrence for most applications. However, to ensure that thrown exceptions are properly caught it may be necessary to check for their presence frequently. For example, a typical implementation of the Java Virtual Machines will include a check for a pending exception after each method invocation. Furthermore, some applications may use exception throwing as a common flow control device. For these applications, the efficient handling of exceptions is critical to their performance. Therefore, it would be beneficial to have an apparatus and method of efficiently detecting and handling exceptions. It would further be beneficial to have an apparatus and method for efficiently detecting and handling exceptions in a machine having predication and explicit parallelism.